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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff I've

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Speaker 1: never told you. A couple of you listeners have written

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Speaker 1: in about acne, and particularly adult acne, especially in response

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Speaker 1: to her episode around cosmetic surgery. You talked about how

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Speaker 1: it negatively impacted your self confidence, how it made you

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Speaker 1: uncomfortable in your own skin, and I can relate. I

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Speaker 1: had acne well into college and I still get stressed acne,

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Speaker 1: particularly around my mouth, and it's that painful, throbbing kind

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Speaker 1: to that that reminds me of Postulio from Invader Zim.

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Speaker 1: If anyone anyone has seen that, that really scared me

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Speaker 1: as a kid. But anyway, I felt like it was

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Speaker 1: all anyone could see. And in the interest of total transparency,

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Speaker 1: mine wasn't that bad of a case either. It certainly

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Speaker 1: felt that way to me, but um, it was pretty manageable.

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Speaker 1: My brother, on the other hand, he had a really

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Speaker 1: severe case of acne, and he took medicines, he got injections,

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Speaker 1: all kinds of things that were uncomfortable or painful or

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Speaker 1: messed with his hormones so that kids would stop making

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Speaker 1: fun of him. And it makes me really sad and

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Speaker 1: really angry. We hardly ever see acne and our media too.

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Speaker 1: It was so surprising to me to see it in

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Speaker 1: that movie Boyhood. If anyone remembers that, um, but it

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Speaker 1: impacts so many of us. And I remember reading too

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Speaker 1: that in movies like Harry Potter they used enhancement technology

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Speaker 1: to get rid of their pimple so that their skin

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Speaker 1: would appear clear, which on the one hand I totally get,

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Speaker 1: But on the other hand, it would have been kind

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Speaker 1: of a nice thing to know. Hey, this can happen

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Speaker 1: to anyone, and it does happen to a lot of us.

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Speaker 1: It's a myth that acne goes away once you enter adulthood,

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Speaker 1: and this classic episode is going to look into all

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Speaker 1: of that, So please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never

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Speaker 1: told you from House Stuff Works dot com. Hold, and

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Molly and I'm Kristin Kristen.

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Speaker 1: Whenever you're having a bad day, and I'm sorry to

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Speaker 1: the teenagers that are about to hear this. Whenever I'm

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Speaker 1: having a bad day, sometimes I go, well, at least

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Speaker 1: puberty is over. Oh man, you're right about that. Puberty

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Speaker 1: is a rough time. We're thinking of you, teenagers. It

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Speaker 1: is not fun. Your hormones are going crazy. And one

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Speaker 1: thing that I definitely remember from my my puberty years

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Speaker 1: acne acne. It was it was not good news for me,

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Speaker 1: and it's not good news for a lot of teenagers.

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Speaker 1: But we're going to talk about today is how this

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Speaker 1: is going to be the saddest podcast ever. I think,

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Speaker 1: I know, Molly, you really start this off on a

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Speaker 1: down note. Acne may not end after puberty. That's what

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Speaker 1: people tell you. If you can just get through puberty,

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Speaker 1: you'll sail through college with your clean skin and then

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Speaker 1: it might just come back. Or you go through puberty

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Speaker 1: with pretty good skin and you're like, WHOA touch that bullet.

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Speaker 1: Wait a minute, no adult acne strikes. We call that karma.

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Speaker 1: No we don't. I don't. I don't mean to say

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Speaker 1: that people who who had clear skin and puberty are

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Speaker 1: bad people, but I think we can all agree we

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Speaker 1: dislike them just a little bit. Well, anyway, thoughts thoughts

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Speaker 1: on clear skinned people aside, Let's talk about some adult

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Speaker 1: acne because here's the thing it might sound, you know,

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Speaker 1: adult acne is just one of those unfortunate sounding terms,

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Speaker 1: you know, like I know, yeah, adult acne, Like there's

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Speaker 1: something wrong, like it's a complete mismatch because, like you said,

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Speaker 1: we usually associate acne with adolescence. But take heart, all

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Speaker 1: of you people out of high school who are having

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Speaker 1: some some pimpular attacks. Yes I just made that word up.

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Speaker 1: It happens to a lot of people. First of all,

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Speaker 1: acne is the most common skin condition period, all right,

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Speaker 1: and it happens to get this of people between eleven

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Speaker 1: and thirty. Yeah, that wasn't eleven and fifteen or eleven eighteen,

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Speaker 1: that's eleven and thirty. So adult acne is kind of

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Speaker 1: this new, I don't want to say buzz word, but

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Speaker 1: a new phenomenon of sorts in the skin industry because

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Speaker 1: you know, people did think that, uh, pimples were something

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Speaker 1: that happened to teenagers, and when an adult woman came

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Speaker 1: in saying look at my skin, dermatologist kind of would

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Speaker 1: throw their hands up in the air and say, that's weird.

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Speaker 1: And for anyone who's ever seen you know, close ups

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Speaker 1: of P Diddy on proactive commercials, we all know it.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't just happen to kids. But you know what,

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Speaker 1: P Diddy is kind of a rarity, Kristen, because let's

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Speaker 1: break this down a little bit by gender, because good news, ladies,

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Speaker 1: it affects us more. Hey guess what what did you know?

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Speaker 1: And I'm sure you can just see the reason for

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Speaker 1: this coming mile way. And we'll get into hormones and

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Speaker 1: stress and all that good stuff later, but first, let's

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Speaker 1: just talk about this breakdown between men and women, because

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Speaker 1: I thought this was pretty fascinating. It's a two thousand

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Speaker 1: seven study that was done at the University of Alabama

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Speaker 1: at Birmingham School of Medicine, and this researcher went around.

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Speaker 1: She had a thousand thirteen men and women aged twenty

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Speaker 1: and older who were at the school, and you know,

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Speaker 1: very similar to that eight percent number you throughout Kristen,

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Speaker 1: seventy three point three percent of these participants at one

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Speaker 1: time or another had dealt with acne. Most of them

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Speaker 1: had had it when they were teenagers. But she was

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Speaker 1: finding a pretty pretty studying percentages of people who were

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Speaker 1: affected as adults, right, because as teenagers, the breakdown between

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Speaker 1: men and women affected by ACNE was pretty much the same.

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Speaker 1: We had sixty eight point five percent of males, sixty

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Speaker 1: six point eight percent of females. But then but then

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Speaker 1: we enter our twenties and then fifty point nine percent

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Speaker 1: of women and forty two point five percent of men

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Speaker 1: reported experiencing acne. So there we've got about, you know,

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Speaker 1: seven point five percent difference. During the thirties, thirty five

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Speaker 1: point two percent of women and twenty point one percent

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Speaker 1: of men reported experiencing acne. So now we're up to

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Speaker 1: fiftent And yes, both percentages are dropping, both genders as

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Speaker 1: as the times goes on. But that gulf between men

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Speaker 1: and women is getting wider because during their forties we've

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Speaker 1: got twenty six point three percent of women twelve percent

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Speaker 1: of men, and during fifties fift three percent of women

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Speaker 1: and seven point three percent of men. So it can

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Speaker 1: affect you as long as as your fifties. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: as if your head isn't swimming with enough percentages right now,

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to throw one more out that kind

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Speaker 1: of sums up this whole thing, all right from this study, Uh,

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Speaker 1: three point five percent of men reported that their acne

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Speaker 1: worsened post adolescents, just three point six percent thirteen point

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Speaker 1: three percent of women reported post post adolescents acne worsening.

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Speaker 1: Oh so just it's just not fair. Yeah, what are

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Speaker 1: all those numbers saying? Yeah, we we got it worse ladies,

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Speaker 1: all right, And guess what. A majority of those women

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Speaker 1: who have trouble with adult acne report that they get

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Speaker 1: their flare ups around menstruation. So here we go. So

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Speaker 1: that leads us well into the big H word. We

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Speaker 1: haven't thrown around in a while. I don't think how we, Kristen,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe like a couple of a couple

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Speaker 1: episodes or something. Well, that's a long time for us.

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Speaker 1: And so we're gonna we're gonna turn back to old

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Speaker 1: hormones because just just as in the teenage years, that's

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Speaker 1: a major cause of adult acne. But I would say

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Speaker 1: that the causes of adult acne are a bit trickier

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Speaker 1: to unwind than they are for teenagers. For teenagers, it

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Speaker 1: seems that treatment is pretty straightforward and the causes are

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Speaker 1: pretty straight forward. But it gets a little trickier, a

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Speaker 1: little trickier once you're out of school. Because the interesting

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Speaker 1: thing is with the hormones as it relates to women

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Speaker 1: an adult acne. A lot of times you guys are

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Speaker 1: probably guessing right now, let me guess, Chris Samali, You're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about estrogen for another twenty minutes. Psych testosterone

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Speaker 1: and it's uh, androgen's which we've talked about before, especially

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Speaker 1: if you remember our peak host podcast. That's UM an

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Speaker 1: androgen imbalance and some and acne is one of the

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Speaker 1: main symptoms of PEAKS polycystic ovary syndrome and UM. So

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Speaker 1: sometimes women will go in and people might just immediately

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Speaker 1: jump to that and that causes the acne people to

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Speaker 1: you know, get get kind of thrown off. Because they've

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Speaker 1: done a few studies about whether androgen's can be the

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Speaker 1: cause of this persistent acne in later years and women,

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Speaker 1: and the studies are really inconclusive, UM in terms of

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Speaker 1: you know, an extreme abnormality indicating this presence of acne

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Speaker 1: and women. You know, they've done studies on all sorts

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Speaker 1: of hormone levels and there's really no clear pattern of um,

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Speaker 1: you know, one big hormone that's out of whack leading

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Speaker 1: to adult acne. It's very very in conclusive, so you

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Speaker 1: can't just say it's this hormone or another one. But

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Speaker 1: they do think it has something to do with androgen's, right,

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Speaker 1: because androgen's is would be a logical conclusion because androgen's

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Speaker 1: if you have a spike, and androgen's you're gonna have

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Speaker 1: a spike in sebum production. And see bum is the

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Speaker 1: oil that your face, oil that gets into those hair follicles,

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Speaker 1: clogs it up, mixes with some soloft off skin sales, siles,

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Speaker 1: some like a southern ga I'll talk in, yes, I am,

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Speaker 1: and then mixes with some you know, maybe some some

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Speaker 1: dirt that's gotten in there, and you got yourself a pimple,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's as christ And said, it's sort of

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Speaker 1: all below the skin. So you can't look at a

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Speaker 1: teenager or a woman who's really really zity for lack

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Speaker 1: of a better word, and just think, oh, she has

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Speaker 1: hygiene problems. She doesn't. You know, you can't wash away

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Speaker 1: pimples that happens under the skin. So that's not the

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Speaker 1: thing that's going on. So if it's not the androgens,

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Speaker 1: if that's still controversial, what else could it be. Doctors

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Speaker 1: are also throwing out things like genetic predisposition. Sure, if

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Speaker 1: you've got a family row that's got it, bad news

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Speaker 1: for you. Smoking is a huge one for women, yes,

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Speaker 1: because smoking also amps up your sebum production as well,

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Speaker 1: which makes sense because you know, if you're if you're smoking,

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Speaker 1: all of that smoke around your face is going to

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Speaker 1: dry things out, and as soon as your face gets

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Speaker 1: really dry, it's gonna kick that oil production into overdrive. Cosmetics,

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Speaker 1: if you use cosmetics, you want to make sure that

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Speaker 1: they are non kometogenic. Well, this goes for cosmetics and

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Speaker 1: for face lotions. All the stuff on screens too, and sunscreens. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that you're putting all over your face, make sure that

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Speaker 1: they are non kometogenic, meaning that they don't clog pores.

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Speaker 1: Looking for oil free formulas is also a good idea

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Speaker 1: because there is a dermatologist in one of our sources

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Speaker 1: that mentioned that the average American uses up to seven

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Speaker 1: products on the face and all of that stuff really

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Speaker 1: is not it's not really helping you out very much.

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Speaker 1: Kick one and just dedicate your life to it, right,

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Speaker 1: don't don't switch back and forth. All right, let's talk

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Speaker 1: about stress, Kristen, because this is another controversial one. There

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Speaker 1: are some sources when we were reading about adult acne

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Speaker 1: that we're like, oh, stress is not a quantifiable factor

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Speaker 1: in adult acne. You can't. We don't see a cause

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Speaker 1: and effect. But then people who have acne tend to

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Speaker 1: be really stressed, and uh, you know, they thought it

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Speaker 1: was more, you know, one happened and then the other.

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Speaker 1: But I think it's more a vicious circle, is what.

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Speaker 1: More people are realizing that stress can kick that oil

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Speaker 1: into overdrive cause acne, and then once you've got the acne,

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Speaker 1: you are stressed because you have acne, and it just

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Speaker 1: it's a vicious circle. And there's some evidence, according to

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Speaker 1: one paper we read from England, that the stress of

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Speaker 1: thing adult acne can be much greater than the stress

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Speaker 1: of having teenage acne. Um we don't think stress can

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Speaker 1: get worse than being a teenager. But because so a

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Speaker 1: few people recognize that adult acne is a condition, then

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Speaker 1: having a few pimples can really affect you know, you

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Speaker 1: as an adult, particularly because there are studies that show

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Speaker 1: that people who have pimples who have acne have a

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Speaker 1: lesser chance of landing a job than someone who has

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Speaker 1: clear skin. But you know what, one thing that can

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Speaker 1: ease our minds about this whole stress acne vicious circle

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Speaker 1: that you are that you're talking about, Molly, it's the

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Speaker 1: fact that, let's say you're really stressed and sometimes and

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Speaker 1: this is highly stereotypical, but you know what, for me,

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Speaker 1: sometimes it's true when I am pulling my hair out

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Speaker 1: with stress. I might want to eat a piece of chocolate. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I like dark chocolate, alright, So but if I eat

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Speaker 1: that piece of chocolate, is that going to mean I'm

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Speaker 1: going to break out and my going to aggravate this

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Speaker 1: whole cycle even more. No. So there's one thing that's

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Speaker 1: one silver lining with all of this. There is no

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Speaker 1: scientific evidence linking chocolate or even greasy foods too breakouts. Now.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, obviously, if you're just living off

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Speaker 1: of high sugar or high fat diets, you're not going

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Speaker 1: to feel very great and that might again aggravate that

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Speaker 1: stress level because your body is just not going to

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Speaker 1: handle it quite as well. But every now and then,

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Speaker 1: if you like to have that piece of dark chocolate, no,

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Speaker 1: no worries face. You're not endangering your face. Let's talk

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Speaker 1: about one big difference between teenage actinge and adult acne Kristen,

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Speaker 1: where it happens. Yes, because when you're a teenager, you

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Speaker 1: tend to break out in your oily tea zone, forehead, yeah,

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Speaker 1: the nose. I'm just seeing pictures of myself flashing up

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Speaker 1: as soon as I name a body part. But adults

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Speaker 1: have it more around their chin, their neck um, cheeks

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Speaker 1: lower more at the lower face. And why this gets

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Speaker 1: harder to treat is because you're not just treating an

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Speaker 1: oily area. Adults don't have that oily skin that a

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Speaker 1: teenager might have. They might have more combination skin. And

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Speaker 1: as if things can't get worse, they might also be

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Speaker 1: trying to treat wrinkles right there. Yeah, so sometimes the

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Speaker 1: things that will treat the acne will cause the wrinkle.

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Speaker 1: It's it's another vicious or the wrinkle streams might be

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Speaker 1: too harsh on the skin. That's why you do want

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Speaker 1: if you if you have noticed that you all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden are having some some flare ups, talk to

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Speaker 1: a dermatologist to make sure that you aren't doing your

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Speaker 1: skin more harm than good by whatever your daily facial

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Speaker 1: regimen is right, And if it if the acne does

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Speaker 1: bother you, then um, like christ And said, talk to

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Speaker 1: a dermatologists. You might need a slightly different tweak than

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Speaker 1: what a tea andrews. You don't need to go by.

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Speaker 1: You may not need to go by like the nutrol

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Speaker 1: gena clear soil that we all use when we were teenagers.

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Speaker 1: And the thing is, with all of this a lot

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Speaker 1: of people are talking to their dermatologists. In fact, so

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Speaker 1: many people and by people I mean adults are talking

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Speaker 1: to their dermatologists about this. That there has been a

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Speaker 1: huge industry boom related to adult acne. And the final question,

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Speaker 1: while we've been almost like fearmongering I think about adult acne,

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Speaker 1: I guess the final question is are these statistics growing up?

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Speaker 1: Are the incidents rates of adult acne actually going up

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Speaker 1: as as these studies would suggest, or have we just

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Speaker 1: become hyper aware of our own face condition by watching

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Speaker 1: too many Proactive commercials? You know what I mean. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's this really interesting article in The New York Times

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Speaker 1: by Natasha Singer called why should Kids Have All the Acne?

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Speaker 1: And it was about sort of how Proactive had a

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Speaker 1: really genius marketing camp hame because it targeted women of

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Speaker 1: our age Kristen, women who thought they were past worrying

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Speaker 1: about pimples, and said, you need to take this aggressive

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Speaker 1: care of your face because you do get breakouts. The

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Speaker 1: question is is whether these breakouts are worth treating. So

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Speaker 1: it's almost like half the things we read and researching

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Speaker 1: this podcast, where like people should know adult acne is real,

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Speaker 1: and the other half of things we read were people

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Speaker 1: should know that breakouts happen, and it's not worth investing,

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Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of dollars in a continuing, proactive or

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Speaker 1: any other acne treatment regiment. So um, you know. They

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Speaker 1: did raise the point in that article that it may

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Speaker 1: not be that these numbers are rising so much as

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Speaker 1: adults have health insurance so it's easier for them to

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Speaker 1: go to a doctor and get something they can use

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Speaker 1: on their face, and that they are just more anxious

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Speaker 1: about it because they think their acne days are behind them.

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Speaker 1: So to me, the main takeaway of all of this

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Speaker 1: adult acne research is to take at least small comfort

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Speaker 1: and knowing that if you are out of high school,

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Speaker 1: even out of college, and you're having some out of

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Speaker 1: nowhere some acne flare ups, you're not alone. You're not alone.

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Speaker 1: I'm willing to tell you that I've got a giant

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Speaker 1: ZiT on my cheek right as we record this podcast.

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Speaker 1: She does people, So you know, if you're walking around

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Speaker 1: there having a bad skin day, just know I'm right

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Speaker 1: there with you today. So that's what we've got. We

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Speaker 1: want to know what you think adult acne. Have you

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Speaker 1: experienced it? Do you have a great way to prevent it.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that you know it is just something

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Speaker 1: that's being uh voisted on us by the skin industry,

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Speaker 1: and uh let us know what you think. And the

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Speaker 1: email addresses mom stuff at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And let's read a few emails that we've gotten to

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Speaker 1: that very email address. I have one here from Vaughn

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Speaker 1: and it's about our Tribute to Doll podcast. Kristen Vaughn writes,

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Speaker 1: while I'm a guy, I did have a bunny rab

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Speaker 1: a doll as a small child. It was more of

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Speaker 1: a stuffed animal. But I couldn't function with thought the thing.

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Speaker 1: I brought it everywhere and did everything with it. Apparently,

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Speaker 1: the day I got it, it belonged to my mother's

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Speaker 1: a child, I had the task of naming it. So

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Speaker 1: of course Sesame Street was on and the word of

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Speaker 1: the day was exit. Apparently I was so moved by

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Speaker 1: this word of the day that it became the name

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Speaker 1: of my rabbit doll. To this day, I can't see

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Speaker 1: an exit sign without thinking about bunnies. Also, I once

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Speaker 1: lost exit before bed one night. My parents frantically searched

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Speaker 1: for the dolls. I cried. They couldn't find it, but

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Speaker 1: they remembered they had another rabbit doll in the attic.

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Speaker 1: They gave the job to me and suggested I name it.

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Speaker 1: I didn't want to name it, so they naturally suggested

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Speaker 1: the name of Entrance. So as a child, I had

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Speaker 1: no idea why other kids thought my stuffed animal dolls

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Speaker 1: have funny names. Totally made sense to me. Nice All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: I've got an email here from James, and this is

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Speaker 1: in response to our episode on chivalry. He said, I

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Speaker 1: can understand from the female perspective how constantly being on

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Speaker 1: the receiving end of these courtesies would seem like an

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Speaker 1: unbalanced equation, but rest to share that we don't give

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Speaker 1: these acts because we view women the lesser. Every time

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Speaker 1: I hold the door for a woman or give up

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Speaker 1: my seat on the bus, I'm making a reaffirmation to

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Speaker 1: myself that I am a gentleman, not hinting that I

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Speaker 1: view her inferior in any respect. I also tend to

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Speaker 1: believe that whereas women can vocalize their intent and feelings

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Speaker 1: towards others with greater ease, most of us men are

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Speaker 1: left primarily with our actions to speak for us. Treat

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Speaker 1: us like a magic act be entertained by what we're saying,

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Speaker 1: but watch our actions for a proper glimpse at our

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Speaker 1: intent and motivations. Interesting. That's an interesting perspective, James. Thank you, so.

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Speaker 1: If you've got something to say, email us again Mom

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Speaker 1: Stuff but how stuff works dot com. You can also

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Speaker 1: tell the world and not just us, if you go

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Speaker 1: over to our Facebook page and like us and leave

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Speaker 1: us a comment, and you can follow us on Twitter,

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Speaker 1: where our name is mom Stuff Podcast. And last but

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Speaker 1: not least, you can see what we're doing during the

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Speaker 1: week on our blog. It's called stuff Mom Never Told You,

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Speaker 1: and it's at how stuff works dot com. For more

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Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out

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Speaker 1: our blogs on the how stuff works dot com home page.

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Speaker 1: M